I originally wrote this article for Outreach North America, sharing an impactful missions experience. It has since become much more than just an experience. I want it to be here to represent our family's story with Rwanda and those we love there. In many ways this is just the beginning...
She was 16. Our relationship was both longstanding and newfound. Longstanding because I first met her years earlier as a child in the ministry I had worked with, and newfound because God knit our hearts together as I stood with her in the greatest struggle of her life. She had become pregnant through no fault or choice of her own. Nothing but a bleak future stood before her and her unborn child. It was in this time that God called me to her side. Never before have I been given such love and compassion for someone who had essentially been a stranger. What could I do for her? How could anything I did make a difference when I was in Rwanda for under three weeks? To that, God said “Feed the hungry.” It was within my means to meet some very immediate physical needs so my husband and I did just that. It so happened in God’s great sovereignty that my brother was sponsoring this precious one. So as we delivered food, we also got to bring words of hope and encouragement from her sponsor across the world. It was not until I stood in her home with her in my arms and my husband relayed these words through tears that God said, “Bring hope to the hopeless.” My heart was forever lost to her that day. The Lord allowed me to be the vessel of His intense, pursuing love of her. Through simply listening to her story, acknowledging her wounds, and committing to a continued relationship, she felt like someone truly loved her for the first time in her life. She began to believe that the God she had prayed to saw her even in her shame. Christ’s hope started to be a light in her smile. While my intention was always to support her in every way possible from home, what I didn’t know was that hugging her before I left would be the last time I would get that opportunity this side of heaven. Disease took her from us only three months later, but not before she delivered and loved on her beautiful baby boy. I wrestled with my God over this loss. I mourned for the life that could have been. I cried for her son who was without the one person he had in this life. And I wondered. I wondered why God connected me to her with so much love to pour out but for such a short season. Why did I have to mourn this? Why did I have to feel so immensely for someone just to lose her? While I knew that I would never regret showing her His love and seeing the change in her heart, I just felt so let down that this was the end. It wasn’t happy. It wasn’t what I hoped for. I can’t say I have all the answers I have wanted from God, but moving forward He says to me, “Care for the orphan.” Before she died, she got to know that we were committed to her and this little life she bore. She knew that we intended to do all we could to help provide for her son. In the end, he was her greatest concern, and God allowed me to be used to bring her peace.
Does God need us to accomplish His plans? No. Does He use us? Absolutely! We are the privileged when He does. So as you follow Christ, spend yourself in loving in His name and for the sake of the gospel. Allow Him to pour into you a love for others that is beyond your understanding. It will require sacrifice. It may leave you with aches and tears you didn’t ask for. You will never regret it!
"We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19
"I saw what I saw, and I can't forget it.
I heard what I heard, and I can't go back.
I know what I know and I can't deny it.
Something along the road, cut me to the soul.
Your pain has changed me.
Your dreams inspire,
Your face a memory,
Your hope a fire,
Your courage asks me what I'm afraid of
And what I know of love."
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